Divine Principle Of Free Agency
I appeal to every Latter-day Saint to accept the divine principle of free agency and to adopt it in his life. I appeal to you to remember this principle when you are confronted by organizations and groups and movements in this country, which are now arising and assuming great power. Before you become engulfed in them, measure their practices and their purposes by the measuring rod of free agency, and you remember that God said it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. Remember, also, what Richard Evans told you yesterday, that it is not right that we should be commanded in all things, and don't you allow yourself to be commanded in all things by any group or agency. You preserve the free agency that God has given to you, because if you don't you will suffer all the days of your life.
You remember that you are to be true to the Constitution of the United States. I appeal to you to accept as the word of God, the declaration that appears in the revelation in section one hundred one of the D&C, wherein the Lord says he did raise up men and inspired them to write the Constitution. I appeal to you, every one, to be true to the trust that God has placed in you, to preach the gospel throughout the world, as has been declared here today. But remember that you cannot preach that gospel without freedom of speech, and you cannot publish that gospel without freedom of the press, and you cannot gather together in congregations without freedom of assembly, and you cannot worship the Lord your God according to the dictates of your own conscience without freedom of religion. And remember that every time you give up any of your freedoms, whether it be to some economic or political group, or to any other group, you jeopardize these four freedoms of which I have spoken.
I appeal to you to accept as the word of God that which I have quoted to you which says that you, the elders of Israel, are justified by God in defending your constitutional privileges. Remember that you have a responsibility to preserve freedom in America. Remember always the glorious prayer that is written into the last stanza of "America" which was sung so beautifully this morning by the Tabernacle choir.
Our father's God! to thee,Author of liberty,To thee we sing;Long may our land be brightWith freedom's holy light!Protect us by thy mightGreat God, our King.
I pray that we may have the courage and the wisdom to accept the truth, that the truth may keep us free, and I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Elder Mark E. PetersenGeneral Conference, April 1946